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Published: June 16th 2008
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Once again sorry for the delay. Now to Tell you about the home stay - this is a long one!! On Saturday June the 6th the directory of the school "Pawha" came to pick me up. His English was much worst than the family I had just stayed with but he was extremely friendly. He and his wife took me to the store which was a massive “Tescos" and I stocked up on essentials such as toilet paper, 100 kinds of mosquito repellant, and a Thai cell phone. By the way anyone is welcome to call me if you get an international calling card. My Number from America is 011 66 8 4475 2851 keep in mind I am 11 hours ahead!! After stocking up on supply's we started the hour drive to my home stay. Along the way we stop at a Buddhist temple on top of a mountain with a pretty amazing view. Pawha and his wife said some prayers and I had to pretend like I knew what I was doing while kneeling like an idiot. After the temple we continued on the road and made it their around 3:00pm. My home stay is in a remote town
in a beautiful valley with two amazing mountains on either side. My home stay is a small structure (I use the word structure because I don't think it would really pass any form of building inspection in America) located on the school grounds. There are two bedrooms and a hall like room on the elevated floor and on the ground floor is the kitchen and bathroom. The rooms are sheltered from the rain and there is electricity but there are massive gaps in the floor boards so bugs, spiders and lizards pretty much run free and at night the lights send an open invitation. At night I have to sleep with a mosquito net around my bed, which I have found actually works really well. NOW FOR THE BATHROOM. - Words cannot describe the shock I got when I saw the bathroom. The bathroom is room with cider block walls the toilet is a hole in the ground. Next the toilet is a bucket for washing your backside (No toilet paper dispenser in Thailand!!) and next to that is a bucket for washing. Basically you throw a bucket of what looks like stagnant water over you to shower. Once I
My Thai Family
MR Sun, Mr FUK(BABY), Mr Nont, Mr. Om saw the bathroom I, a grown man, almost started crying!!! However after a week I have completely gotten use to it and it is not half as bad as I initially thought.
I started teaching on Monday which was a little stressful because I was suppose to just have an easy first day but they stuck me in a class room and said “you teach”. I am teaching between 4 and 5 class a day which is a lot because I am only meant to teach 3 classes a day. I just don’t have the heart to say NO. The people here are so friendly and although they don’t have much they are treating me like a king. I get fed so much even though every meal is rice. I can tell you for a fact that once I get back to the states I will not be eating rice until Christmas.
The students here are really great and due to the fact that I am the first foreigner in the region that isn’t a perverted 70 year old man with a 20 year old wife I am getting a lot of attention. Not to mention I am teaching
My bathroom
On your right is the toilet, in the middle is the backside washer and in the trough for showering at their school so they are really excited. Everywhere I go I get screams of HELLO. It is really overwhelming. Also I have spent a few hours walking around the local town and the surrounding rice paddies and everywhere I go I get stared at and all I hear is people pointing and saying “FARANG FARANG”, which is Thai for white foreigner. If I was self conscious I would be in serious trouble, but let’s face it I love the attention!! On Wednesday Mister Chairt (A teacher from the school that pretty much runs my life) took me up to a near by mountain spring and we had a nice little picnic with some other teachers and just chilled out for a few hours. It was really great except once again I forgot my camera. On the way back to the school we stopped at a coconut farm and got some fresh coconuts. I also got to see a silk worm farm which I had never seen before (Pretty cool). After class on Friday I went with one of the teachers whose family lives in the provincial capital Chaiyaphum for the weekend. This house was awesome because I had a
tv with English channels and air conditioning. Friday was also my birthday so thanks for all the email birthday wishes. For my birthday I decided to treat myself and I went and got a pepsi and some chocolate from the 7/11 - that doesn’t sound like much but it was AWSOME. I have been living off rice and water for the last week so that is exactly what I needed. On Saturday I went back to the shopping center and re-stocked on supplies. Then on Sunday I came back to school.
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Jeff from work
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Darragh - just remembered about your blog and decided to check it out. Awesome stuff, but I think the Thai kids you teach probably crush you in terms of writing in English haha. Have fun and I'll keep you posted on how awesome my mortgage payments will be.